I love where we live: Marin County, CA.

We are 15 minutes to San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge and 3 - 4 hours to Tahoe. And we're smack dab in the middle of cycling nirvana: farms, cows, ocean views, hills, dirt trails for the MTB'ers. We live on the side of Mt. Tamalpais, which is a beautiful small mountain overlooking the sea and SF Bay.

In spite of being so close to a wonderful big city, much of Marin is very small-towny. My 11 year old daughter can walk around town by herself without a worry. And a huge percentage of the county is designated as either open space land trust or agricultural use.

Oh - and BJ Hunicutt from MASH lived in my town! You know, with Peg and the kids.

Of course the cost of living is tough. It took us 7 years living in DH's parents' house to finally be able to afford to move out on our own. But there are areas in the northern part of the county, or next door Sonoma County which Trek referred to, where it's not so expensive as Southern Marin.